Nebraska's Saline Wetlands
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NEBRASKAland Magazine
such as wetlands and prairies as a vital part of Lincoln's
natural heritage in its comprehensive plans. The most recent
plan guiding future growth identifies the saline wetlands as
an environmental resource that should be conserved due to
their benefits to society, recognizing their rarity, the vital
habitats they provide for threatened and endangered species,
and the legacy they played in the founding of the city.
But perhaps the most important thing of all is that these
saline wetlands and salt marshes are still a mystery to most
people, which poses perhaps the biggest challenge and
opportunity.
Ted LaGrange, wetland program manager with the
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, remembers coming
to Lincoln as a young biologist, and barely knew about the
saline wetlands that he would come to know so well and
share with others.
"I was giving a saline wetland tour to some kids the other
day, and we were parked just south of Interstate 80 and
North 27th Street. I told them when I came to Lincoln in
1993 there was no urban development there except a Kmart
located way south on Cornhusker Highway, a wetland, and
a small house and some pastureland. That was a generation
ago to these kids. They weren't even born yet. I told them
none of the apartments and hotels and car dealerships they
see now were there, and they couldn't believe it. Then I
took them north of I-80 to Arbor Lake, and I said if the city
had not removed this location from a future urban growth
area you would just keep driving through development at
least for a couple more miles, and certainly within a mile
of the interstate you would have fast food restaurants, gas
With heads down, mixed flocks of shorebirds feed heavily on the rich soup of aquatic invertebrates found in healthy salt marshes
rimmed by the prairie at Jack Sinn Wildlife Management Area. Protecting saline wetlands means protecting prairie too.
Releases of the federally endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle
have taken place at selected saline wetland sites, like here at
Arbor Lake. The larvae are propagated in the lab at the Henry
Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and released with partners and volunteers
under the direction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
